The Bhagavad Gita is universally acknowledged as one of the world's literary and spiritual masterpieces. It is the core text of the Hindu tradition, one that has been translated into more than two hundred English editions. Stephen Mitchell—the acclaimed translator of Pablo Neruda, Rainer Maria Rilke, and the Tao Te Ching—has produced a definitive version of The Bhagavad Gita for our time. Mitchell's translation sings with the clarity, the vigor, and the intensity...

"A twenty-first-century form of ancient wisdom . . . Mitchell's flights, his paradoxes, his wonderful riffs are brilliant and liberating." -Pico IyerThe most widely translated book in world literature after the Bible, Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living. Following the phenomenal success of his own version of the Tao Te Ching, renowned scholar and translator Stephen Mitchell has composed t...

The Bhagavad Gita, or 'Song of the Spirit', is the best known book of India's national epic The Mahabharata. Based on a dialogue between Bhagavan Krishna and Prince Arjuna on the eve of a great battle, it is held to be the essence of Hindu spirituality, sacred literature and yoga, as well as exploring the great universal themes of courage, honour, death, love, virtue and fulfilment. Of interest to the large number of contemporary spiritual seekers - of any faith and none - who want to read...

Let the heavens and the earth rejoice: A new adaptation of the psalms from the author of The Gospel According to Jesus.When the ancient rabbis named the anthology that we know as the Book of Psalms, they called it sefer tehillim—the Book of Praises. That is the dominant theme of the greatest of the Psalms: a rapturous praise, a deep, exuberant gratitude for being here.In this volume, leading biblical scholar and award-winning translator Step...

'A powerful translation' The Telegraph'As narrative verse, this Gilgamesh entrances and enthrals.' Independent'Stephen Mitchell's Gilgamesh is a wonderful version' Harold BloomDiscover the foundational work of world literature - the world's oldest epic poem, vividly translated by Stephen Mitchell.Gilgamesh is a born leader, the king of Uruk. But he is arrogant. To control Gi...

“I love The First Christmas. What a charming way Stephen Mitchell has found to tell my favorite story of all, the Nativity, character by character (I love the donkey and the ox), with wise and thrilling interludes about God, reality, truth.” –Anne LamottIn The First Christmas, Stephen Mitchell brings the Nativity story to vivid life as never before. A narrative that is only sketched out in two Gospels becomes fully realized here with nuanced chara...

“I love The First Christmas. What a charming way Stephen Mitchell has found to tell my favorite story of all, the Nativity, character by character (I love the donkey and the ox), with wise and thrilling interludes about God, reality, truth.” –Anne LamottIn The First Christmas, Stephen Mitchell brings the Nativity story to vivid life as never before. A narrative that is only sketched out in two Gospels becomes fully realized here with nuanced chara...

The classic guide for Zen students pursuing the true way."Somebody comes into the Zen center with a lighted cigarette, walks up to the Buddha-statue, blows smoke in its face and drops ashes on its lap. You are standing there. What can you do?" This is a problem that Zen Master Seung Sahn was fond of posing to his American students who attended his Zen centers.Dropping Ashes on the Buddha is a delightful, irreverent, and often hilariously funny livi...

**“**A unique and special kind of masterpiece.” —John BanvilleThis program is read by the author.Stephen Mitchell’s gift is to breathe new life into ancient classics. In Joseph and the Way of Forgiveness, he offers us his riveting novelistic version of the Biblical tale in which Jacob’s favorite son is sold into slavery and eventually becomes viceroy of Egypt. Tolstoy called it the most beautiful story in the world...

Found in the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible, this parable of a righteous man tested for his faith answers the question of why bad things happen to good people. Perhaps no other biblical tale penetrates so deeply into the everyday travails of the common person as The Book of Job. A well-to-do, God-fearing man, Job leads a content life of piety. But Job's faith is put to the test by God when he allows Satan to inflict pain on the devout man. The story of a righteous man beset by torment ...

When clearing out his mothers fl at Stephen discovers a tin of old photographs under her bed. Each image evokes a memory of childhood and we get to meet the people who inhabit those memories wayward friends and sensible friends, strict teachers and hopeless teachers, ugly girls and gorgeous girls, Aunts who are not Aunts and Uncles who are not Uncles and a grandfather who revels in the art of mischief.In this funny and sometimes moving novella Stephen Mitchell wonders whether our m...

A sweeping historical account of the Later Roman Empire incorporating the latest scholarly researchIn the newly revised 3rd edition of A History of the Later Roman Empire, 284-700, distinguished historians Geoffrey Greatrex and Stephen Mitchell deliver a thoroughly up-to-date discussion of the Later Roman Empire. It includes tables of information, numerous illustrations, maps, and chronological overviews. As the only single volume covering Late Antiquity a...